There was a person in the back of the class.

They’d been there since the beginning of the year, and no one had questioned their presence. Their dark hair hung in front of their face so that their facial features were blocked from view, their hands always in their pockets — but they always sat straight as a line, as if they were ready to pay attention.

They never spoke, never raised their hand, and were always the last one in the classroom. No one ever saw the person leave or enter. Whenever the bell rang, they’d appear out of thin air — ready to start the day. People avoided this person like the plague.

But one day, they disappeared. In a blink, they were gone — never to show up again. The kids pondered what could’ve happened. Rumors ran wild for years, questions of where the nameless student might’ve gone.

“Maybe they got tired of the name calling,” some suggested. “Maybe they were kicked out.”

As time went on and years went by, long after those students had graduated and gone off to do bigger and better things, the school shut down, left abandoned to nature. One of those students — once a curious girl, and now an even more curious adult — brought her team in to investigate the scene, thinking that maybe there had been more to this.

“Could’ve been a missing person’s case,” one of her colleagues suggested as they avoided the holes in the ground now leading to a horrible drop into the basement. “No name, no face. Hate to say it, but maybe it was-“

“No-” she said quickly, cutting him off. “No, it wasn’t that. I promise you it wasn’t that.” The man seemed to not believe her, but he nodded anyway and they continued on.

She twisted the doorknob open to the classroom she hadn’t seen in ages, once filled with pictures on the walls but now replaced with cracks and grime.

“Here goes nothing.” She opened the door.

She looked up and scanned the room and empty desks as the memories flooded back to her. Memories of happy laughter and people she hadn’t seen in person since she’d left; people she’d probably never see again. But there was one that remained; a figure — no, a person — that sat in the corner, much taller than she remembered.

“Hello?” she said.

And they lifted their head and their hair fell behind them, finally revealing a face.